There’s been another mass
shooting in America -- this time, in a community college in Oregon.

That means there are more
American families -- moms, dads, children -- whose lives have been
changed forever. That means there’s another community stunned with
grief, and communities across the country forced to relieve their own
anguish, and parents across the country who are scared because they know
it might have been their families or their children.

I’ve been to Roseburg,
Oregon. There are really good people there. I want to thank all the
first responders whose bravery likely saved some lives today. Federal
law enforcement has been on the scene in a supporting role, and we’ve
offered to stay and help as much as Roseburg needs, for as long as they
need.

In the coming days, we’ll
learn about the victims -- young men and women who were studying and
learning and working hard, their eyes set on the future, their dreams on
what they could make of their lives. And America will wrap everyone
who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.

But
as I said just a few
months ago,1and I said a few months before that,2 and I said each time we
see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not
enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief
and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this
carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America -- next week, or
a couple of months from now.

We don't yet know why this
individual did what he did. And it's fair to say that anybody who does
this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their
motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has
people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are
the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass
shootings every few months.

Earlier this year, I
answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of
America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have
sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated
mass killings.”3 And later that day, there was a
mass shooting at a
movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has
become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this
podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it.
We've become numb to this.

And what’s become routine,
of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense
gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being
cranked out: We need more guns, they’ll argue. Fewer gun safety laws.

Does anybody really
believe that? There are scores of responsible gun owners in this
country -- they know that's not true. We know because of the polling
that says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing
these laws -- including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun
owners.

There is a gun for roughly
every man, woman, and child in America. So how can you, with a straight
face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? We know that
states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So
the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for
law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not
borne out by the evidence.

We know that other
countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft
laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of
ours --
Great Britain,
Australia, countries like ours. So we know there
are ways to prevent it.

And, of course, what’s
also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama
politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize.
It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. I
would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward
-- have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been
killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of
Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those
side-by-side on your news reports. This won't be information coming
from me; it will be coming from you. We spend over a trillion dollars,
and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing
terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a
Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we
could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?

This is a political choice
that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We
collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones
because of our inaction. When Americans are killed in mine disasters,
we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and
hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix
them to reduce auto fatalities. We have seatbelt laws because we know
it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different,
that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of
how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all
across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do
everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.

So, tonight, as those of
us who are lucky enough to hug our kids a little closer are thinking
about the families who aren't so fortunate, I’d ask the American people
to think about how they can get our government to change these laws, and
to save lives, and to let young people grow up. And that will require a
change of politics on this issue. And it will require that the American
people, individually, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an
independent, when you decide to vote for somebody, are making a
determination as to whether this cause of continuing death for innocent
people should be a relevant factor in your decision. If you think this
is a problem, then you should expect your elected officials to reflect
your views.

And I would particularly
ask America’s gun owners -- who are using those guns properly, safely,
to hunt, for sport, for protecting their families -- to think about
whether your views are properly being represented by the organization
that suggests it's speaking for you.

And each time this happens
I'm going to bring this up. Each time this happens I am going to say
that we can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to
change our laws. And this is not something I can do by myself. I've
got to have a Congress and I've got to have state legislatures and
governors who are willing to work with me on this.

I hope and pray that I
don't have to come out again during my tenure as President to offer my
condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my
experience as President, I can't guarantee that. And that's terrible to
say.

And it can change.

May God bless the memories
of those who were killed today. May He bring comfort to their families,
and courage to the injured as they fight their way back. And may He
give us the strength to come together and find the courage to change.

1 "And to say our
thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their
community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and
the anger that we feel." (Barack Obama, Statement on Shooting at
Charleston Emanuel AME Church, 18 June
2015).